The Daily Telegraph. FRIDAY, MAY 30, 1884.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 4011, 30 May 1884, Page 2

The Daily Telegraph. FRIDAY, MAY 30, 1884.

The one distinctive policy of the present Ministry is that relating to the administration of Crown lands, and a more enlightened policy no Government has yet given or even advocated in this colony. It is

liberal to a degree; .and when coupled, as it has boon, with a steady refusal to place any special tax upon land, the country may ■well be congratulated on the results of Mr Rblleston's administration. The Hon. G. M. Waterhouse, in a recent letter to the New Zealand .Times, as that journal remarks, Tery pithily and very effectively states the case of the landholders. He says that, the property tax returns show that there were in i the colony in 1881 no less than 60,658 owners of real property, of •whom only 1603 own more than 1000 acres each. And we know, from the large areas taken up by small settlers since that return was made, the number of small holders has increased largely. He very rightly points to the depressed condition oi the land

owners, and very naturally asks: Will special taxation upon this class induce a return of a general prosperity ? The Hon. Mr Waterhouso haa certainly put a question that the holders of a theory that land should be specially and heavily taxed "will ~" find it difficult to answer. Instructive and interesting would be a last of all bankruptcies that have occurred in New Zealand since the commercial crisis first began. The New Zealand Times has no hesitation in saying that there has been as large a percentage of failures among these landowners as among any class in the community. The trading "»nd manufacturing - classes have not suffered more severely, yet it is proposed to do away with a property\ tax; and levy instead a heavy land tax. Another instructive return would be one showing how many landowners have had to mortgage their land during these bad times. Our Wellington contemporary ventures to say that the return of bankruptcies, and the -return showing mortgages would appal those who talk violently about taxing the laud. Wool fetches such poor prices, and grain is so ruinously low that none, except a few large holders of land, have made any money at all during the past few years. From end to end of New Zealand, farmers and wool growers are complaining that they are not making, but losing money. Already they pay a tax on land, in the shape of a property tax, but it is proposed to levy upon them another and a special tax. No one has yet haard a single advocate of a land tax aa against a property tax demonstrate the process by which the people would he mado more prosperous if a special heavy tax were to be laid upon so large a part of the community as the 60,000 land owners and their families. Mr Waterhouse has practically challenged the supporters of a. land-tax theory to show the reason of the faith tha£( is in them by himself showing that by far the greater number of the land owners are quite unable to bear further taxation. ,